auliers face fresh ban barrage
Page 6
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The web of restrictions on truck movements is tightening with news of two more truck bans by local authorities.
In Birmingham, the council wants a complete daytime ban on trucks from six major streets in the city centre, including part of New Street. Hundreds of deliveries would have to be rescheduled.
The plan is part of a pedestrianisation scheme. Vehicles would be banned from 10:0018; 00hrs, even for deliveries. The city centre has suffered from competition from out-oftown shopping centres and has to be made more attractive to shoppers, the council believes.
In a study two months ago, 132 deliveries were made in one day on a single stretch of New Street that will be hit by the proposed council ban. The trade associations are expected to fight the scheme when exact details are published some time next month.
Road Haulage Association Midlands district manager Bob Ward says it will hit hard as there is little rear access to buildings in the area.
Parcels firms will be most affected, he warns.
In south Oxfordshire, antitruck feeling has led to a complicated series of bans at 17 tonnes on part of the A329 and 7.5 tonnes on the busy B4009 near Watlington.
Some council officers fear that the bans won't work, but the signs are going up this autumn regardless.
The B4009 ban will even hit some local firms, because the restricted areas will be subdivided, with no access to one area through another.
The council has received applications for permits, but "we are not running that kind of scheme", a spokesman said this week. The police have told the council that the ban will be virtually unenforceable and a council source admits: "We haven't got a lot of faith in the scl-k..me but certain members
have. The whole concept became much more complicated when the planners got involved." Already, councillors in neighbouring Buckinghamshire are considering bringing in bans of their own to cope with possible diverted traffic.
Wallington haulier Stuart Turner, with a warehoue and 12 artics, is based in the middle of the ban area: "A bypass would be better than a ban."